Ah, the honourable history of the Olympics makes all sports related arguments valid. Oddly enough, the idea for the Olympic flame came from the Nazis.

I wonder why they don't do nude wrestling or nude athletics any more? Those ancient Greeks sure knew how to operate a semi-automatic shotgun, right enough.

When I said flame, I meant torch relay. A small but vital piece of trivia.

Just a little from the SMH article cited in my first post

Quote.
In evidence presented to the trial, police said official statistics showed handgun violence had increased more than fourfold [that's 400% folks ! !] since 1996.

"The possession and sale of illicit firearms is the subject of intense media, political and community interest and the recent release of statistics by the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research clearly indicate the significant rise of handgun-related crimes resulting in violence," Inspector Joseph told the court. Unquote.

Another point of interest, the NSW Parliament (according to the Ch 10 News this evening) has passed special legislation to allow Dick Cheney's 'minders' to carry firearms.
9MSN is running a poll on this and the responce is heavily against the idea.

I agree Wikipedia can be edited - but funnily enough, recent comparisons with the encyclopaedia britannica found that wikipedia was pretty damn accurate. Besides, those two particular nuggets I used are also sourced at the bottom of the article.

I've been to sporting shooting clubs - I don't deny most of the people there are intelligent decent people having a bit of fun.
I've even indulged in a spot of bowhunting, and I've joined others on feral pig shoots.

I know my rhetoric sounds strong; but when it comes to things like rifles and practical uses for them I'm not necessarily opposed.

What I am opposed to, is moves to scale back restrictions on the carrying of handguns in public.
I don't want to live in an Australia, where if I glance across the way in at a footy game I can see a sidearm poking out of the side of someone's holster.
I wouldn't like to see guns on people walking down the street; and I really don't see how people can logically argue this kind of thing will make our streets safer.
I wouldn't gain any comfort knowing there's a revolver in the top drawer, and in the event of a home invasion, I happen to believe we're all better off with either a big dog or an alarm.

TurnRightThenLeft, I don’t think that you’ll ever have to worry about the laws being scaled back so that there are people packing as they stroll the streets or go to the football. None of the previous posters has even suggested this. I don’t feel the need for that. Defending your home is different, though. If I was the victim of a home invasion, I wouldn’t hesitate to blow the invader away.
Just as your average golfer doesn’t walk down the street with an iron , a wood, a wedge and/or a putter, the sporting shooter only uses his guns at shooting events and transports them there and back under secure cover. Allowing us shooters our fun won’t create a Deadwood or Dodge City culture.
As for big dogs, they can be dangerous, just look at how many kids are mauled by them.

What has happened to the rate of accidental deaths from guns over the last thirty years. Does anyone know?

The great gun buy-back was simply a well-intended, poorly thought out, knee-jerk reaction after Port Arthur. A slower, phased response could have been much more effective. As it is there are now a lot of guns stored away in old pipes and buried for 'safe-keeping'. It would have been better, to start with, simply to make people register their guns without any threat of confiscating them. That would have received considerable support. By now we could have had some really useful information about who has guns, why they have guns and how they are being used. Armed with good information we could have formulated some sensible laws with which to move forward.

Sure, the crims intent on using their guns for crime would not have registered them. They are quite a different problem requiring a different solution. One good thing about crims having guns is that they invariably end up shooting each other.